


Being Grown Up

by amanda_jolene



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:45:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1997211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amanda_jolene/pseuds/amanda_jolene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adulting is hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Grown Up

Being an adult is hard. 

Finn doesn’t realize this until he’s 20 and trying to make ends meet, working a crap job to help pay for their crap apartment and trying to keep his head above the academic water in school. He reckons he thought when him and Rae finally had a place of their own that life would just instantly smooth out, that the years of fighting for time together would be over but if he’s honest, it’s just gotten worse. 

Rae works 12 hour shifts at the hospital. Four hours a day are devoted to clinicals and the other 8 are what give her a paycheck. Then she has night classes. Finn works an opposite schedule. Morning classes and night shift job that he loathes with his entire being. 

It was sort of exciting in the beginning. He would meet her for lunch between his classes and she would sneak into his job for late night quickies after her last class ended. But it stopped being fun when he realized they were too exhausted to keep the routine up and he wakes up one morning and realizes that while he’s seen Rae in passing the last week, he isn’t really sure if they’ve actually said anything to each other. 

Part of his brain knows he should remedy this. They aren’t mad at each other, they still love each other but at some point, they both became just too tired to really give a damn about anything other than surviving and sleeping. But that wasn’t right (his heart acknowledges this more than his brain does) and he should fix this, cross whatever space has come between them. The shower is running and he could just nip in for a bit, not even for sex just to ask how her yesterday had gone but the other part of his brain (the one that was still reeling from yesterday’s history exam) tells him to shut the fuck up and go back to sleep because school started in an hour and a half and then there was work and he wouldn’t be seeing his bed again until well past 1 in the morning. 

So he shuts his eyes and goes back to sleep. 

When his alarm clock goes off (Rae never needs an alarm and Finn thinks it’s some sort of voodoo magic), she’s long gone to her first shift at the hospital and he’s almost dangerously late for his first lesson (damn that snooze button). By the time he manages to get out of their building, he’s got a bit of toothpaste in his hair and he feels winded but he isn’t sure if it’s because he’s been moving at near warped speed or if the sight of Rae sitting on the concrete steps has knocked all of the air out of him. 

She’s crying. He can tell that by the shake of her shoulders and the way she keeps brushing her cheeks against the shoulder of her jacket. He lets his bag slide down and crosses the gap between them, sitting on the step beside her, flinging an arm around her. 

“What’s wrong, girl?” 

Rae turns away from him (a defense move left over from her teenage years) and tries to compose herself a little. “Nothing. Just being silly, I suppose.” She tries to laugh but it’s a shaky one that turns into a heart wrenching sob and Finn scoots just that much closer and pulls her in. 

“No, really. What’s going on? Why aren’t you at the hospital?”

“Clinicals were cancelled and today is my off day. It’s stupid to cry over that but…” Rae shakes her head, wipes away another crop of fresh tears. “It just upset me because I was thinking that if I had known that they were cancelled, I could have just slept in. And I know it sounds even more stupid that I’m upset over sleep but I am so fuckin’ exhausted that I think I could sleep for 10 years and still wake up tired.”

He knows the feeling. 

It’s one of those moments that, when he’s much older, he look back on and congratulate himself for being a good boy. But right now, 20 year old Finn is thinking that he’s got a serious decision to make. He could tell Rae that everything would be fine and that she should go up to their apartment, have herself a little tea and a nap. Maybe he could come back for a quick lunch before his afternoon classes start. 

But he knows if he does that, it sends the message (and maybe she wouldn’t pick up on it right away but it would always be in the back of her mind) that school and work and careers were priority and Finn Nelson decided years ago that the only priority he had in his life was Rae Earl and her happiness (a few years later, he’ll change that priority to Rae Nelson and her happiness and then to Rae Nelson, baby Nelsons, and their happiness). School can wait. Even work can take a backseat for a night because under all the exhaustion, he knows she’s also feeling a little abandoned because he feels the same way and this isn’t how he wanted his life with her to turn out. 

So he’s going to change it. 

“Come on. Let me make you some tea.” 

She looks at him through watery eyes, confusion written all over her face. “Don’t you have class?” 

He does. He has 3 classes today but he will just have to absent for them all. “Nah.” 

She’s still sniffling and wiping at her eyes when he unlocks the apartment door but he doesn’t mind because sometimes all a person needs is a good cry and it’s best to let them get it out. So he deposits her on the couch with a box of tissue and a kiss to the top of the head before he sets out to make tea just the way she likes it. 

When it’s done, she’s no longer crying and it makes him feel a smidge better because her tears always managed to tie his stomach in knots. He hands her the cup and she smiles at him the same way she did when she turned up at his house after her mum and her had a round and he thanks God (or whatever deity there might be) that after all they’ve been through, she’s still his and he is still hers. 

“Feeling a bit better?” He asks her once the tea is gone and her eyes start to droop.

“Yeah, I do. Tea makes everything better, right?” It’s that coy smile that makes his heart melt and then she leans against him, moving his arm to wrap around her so that she can snuggle into his chest a little better. 

They sit like that for a while and Finn feels his own eyes start to close but he jerks awake when Rae sits up, her hair adorably rumpled on one side. “I want to go to bed. Do you want to lay down with me?” 

He wouldn’t say no even if someone offered him an unlimited supply of money to do so. 

It isn’t until they are in bed, facing each other, knees tucked into each other, Rae’s head under his chin, that he realizes how much he’s missed her. It’s mind boggling to think that you can live with someone and still miss them but damn if he doesn’t feel it deep in his chest. He hugs her as tight as he can, chuckling at her mild protest of being jostled and squeezed, before he tells her he loves her with all of his heart and could she ever forgive him for being so terrible and horrible and-

“What are you going on about?” She finally questions.

“I haven’t been spending enough time with you.” 

“I’m guilty of the same, Finley.” She snuggles into his chest again, her words muffled and muted. “Doesn’t mean we’re awful, just means we’re adults now. That’s all.” 

“That isn’t the sort of adult I want to be.” 

And it isn’t. Because Finn knew from his own parents disastrous divorce, adults who didn’t make time for the ones they loved the most ended up divorced and bitter and hating each other over things that could have been avoided if only they’d realized that people, not things, are priorities. 

And Finn never wanted it to come to that with her. 

Rae must have been thinking of her own parents because she gave him a firm squeeze and murmured, “Yeah, me neither.” 

(When they wake up, Finn isn’t sure if it’s just the extra sleep or if he’s still exhausted, but he’s pretty sure he’s never been more in love with her.)


End file.
